Come back soon, Oddie

Hi Len, it was such an amazing game!!

First, the art was simply gorgeous: the sky the colours, how evocative everything was... Even the textbox blurred in with the field of flowers beautifully, which added to the immersion!

The music too was absolutely gorgeous, you really chose an amazingly melancholic track!

The voice-acting was STELLAR. The two characters were insanely touching! Paulo obviously speaks more, and the actor manages to highlight his vulnerabilty and yet to portray all the weight he used to carry on his shoulders: it is a man with a sense of responsibility, who fulfilled his duties, but is now left alone, pining for a friend he might never see again, with the hope of being nothing but a memory.

The audio engineer also did a great job with everything!! The audios for the two voice actors sounded very consistent!

Finally, the writing, wow, the writing!! Goregeously poetic. And sure, we tend to say, in general, that a writing is poetic because it contains some metaphors and pretty images with delicate grammar and syntax. Here, the text is poetic in a more literal meaning: it sounds like a poem (which makes the performance of the voice actors even more impressive). It rains images, and even the usual "visual novel"-like structure of the lines is sometimes broken to emphasise, instead, the versified nature of them. This really made the game a mesmerising experience and allowed the characters to articulate their feelings in ways that go beyond normal speech: somehow, they even gained some mythical quality (which is quite appropriate with one of the characters being named "Odysseus").

Finally, the story was touching. It is quite the simple one: a man longs to be at least a memory, or the fragment of one, in the mind of his long-lost friend; then, they meet again, putting an end of decades of longing and confronting them to one ultimate truth: do you remember me, Oddie? And it's amazing to see how emotional the story manages to be, not despite its simplicity, but THANKS TO it.

Thanks for the game, Len, and congrats to all the team for the hardwork, it was a gorgeous one!!

wait for you like an animal that stops and looks behind and stares. And waits."

It was a good listen, everyone did a wonderful job.

"I

Holy fuck len, this was so good! I feel like I started crying almost at the first line and I was bawling by the end. It was so poetic and beautiful. The music fit perfectly and the voice acting was splendid. Such a beautiful piece of art!

"I'm so glad you got to be old."

This is an absolutely gorgeous game - len never fails to deliver on making games that are poetic, aesthetic, and sweetly sentimental. (Thank you for giving me the chance to proof the script!) 

The slow pan from the starry sky to the field of yellow flowers is gorgeous and suits the nostalgic, yet melancholic vibe of the game so well. The BGM - the haunting violin and guitar - sets the mood of the game perfectly, with its wistful beauty. I love the way the text box was set up as well - with the flowers on either side, sitting the text within the flower field. It's very immersive and, at the same time, easy to read/aesthetic, with the slight purple outline for the text. Len's writing is poetic as always, with Paulo's monologue reading more like a (love) letter to Oddie than spoken words. The VAs did an absolutely fantastic job - their voices fit the characters and their sentimental delivery fits the lines well. 

====MINOR SPOILERS BELOW (the game is short, you should really just play it====

I really love this vision of the afterlife - not a dark place, but one with beautiful mountains and flowers and a sky full of stars. And yet there's something melancholic about the fact that Paulo can't appreciate these things - he merely sits and waits for his friend to arrive. He doesn't regret his life, and he's at peace with it. But something within him doesn't want to be forgotten - not by the world, but by his dearest friend. Paulo's feelings are sweet and sympathetic - he is glad that Odysseus got to live a full life, and something in him believes that Odysseus doesn't belong here, in death - but he longs to see him all the same. (The reveal that Oddie is, in fact, Odysseus adds quite a bit of nuance to this story as well - since we as the audience KNOW how many adventures that Odysseus went through after Paulo's presumed death during the war. And the idea that Paulo has been waiting all this time, unable to move on - makes him seem even more lonely. Part of me wishes that Paulo had moved on, but part of me is also appreciative of his loyalty and glad that he stayed.) 

At the end, it's a bit ironic that, at first, Paulo doesn't recognize Odysseus after waiting for him for so long. Yet it also makes sense - at this point, Odysseus has lived a full life, long past when he was friends with Paulo. He's an old man, not exactly how Paulo remembers. I kind of wonder if - at this point - Odysseus is a different person, and not the friend that Paulo once knew. I don't think there is an easy answer for this question, so the open-ended nature of the ending is fitting. It leaves the player to come up with their own conclusion - does Oddie remember Paulo, or not?

Overall, this was really fantastic! (May Oddie and Paulo date in their next life...)